The Confabulator Cafe

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  • Collections Hell

    To: mathew.logan@soulnet.org
    From: collections@hellnet.org

    Dear Matthew Logan,

    I am writing to inform you that your grace period of 15 years, as previously agreed upon by both parties, is coming to a close. On September 30, 2016 your fee of the energy from one human soul, hereafter known as your immortal soul, will be due. On or before this date, your immortal soul will be ripped from your body and transferred to the underworld for eternal storage. Please make whatever arrangements you feel are appropriate and schedule a visit with one of our many repossesion agents at your earliest convenience.

    Appointments for immortal soul collection do fill up fast during this time of year, due to the many contracts signed during the early autumn months. In order to ensure a convenient time to surrender your immortal soul, we do recommend that you make an appointment as soon as possible. The process is fast and we try our best to make it as painless as possible.

    If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your case-demon directly at: ralachi.collections@hellnet.org

    Ralachi
    Fifth Level of Hell
    Collections Department

    #

    To: collections@hellnet.org
    From: mathew.logan@soulnet.org

    How on Earth did you get this email? I did not and never have signed any kind of contract for my immortal soul. If this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny.

    Mathew Logan (more…)

  • September Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Summer is nearing and end, and fall quickly approaches. The summer months are long and lazy, and some of us haven’t been writing like we should. Others have created wonderful stories for September.

    The Confabulators were challenged to write a story about a repo man of their choosing for September. To find out what kind of things are being repossessed due to defaulting on a payment, check back every Friday this month to read our original, fresh, new fiction.

    Here’s the schedule for September:

    Friday, September 2: “Collections Hell” by Dianne Williams
    Friday, September 16: “Awkward Silences” by Rob Conway
    Friday, September 23: “Laying Down the Law” by Anita C. Young
    Friday, September 30: “Not Actually Very Funny At All” by Emily Mosher

  • Soul Bracelet

    Alexandra felt certain that the heat was literally melting her flesh from her bones as she sat in front of the wheezing fan. This summer had been particularly brutal and the weatherwoman predicted no break in the heat on the horizon.

    “Seriously, Grandma Jean, can we turn the freaking AC on?” The fan distorted Alexandra’s voice making it all the more pitiful.

    “Language, young lady.”

    “Freaking isn’t a curse,” she muttered under her breath.

    “It’s the intent. And that’s all the more important given our abilities.”

    “Yeah, yeah. Like I’m going to start a fire by saying freaking.” She’d heard the speech far too many times in the last year living with her grandmother. “About the AC?”

    “I’ve managed to survive living here without air conditioning for a decade, I think you’ll be able to survive your next few years.” (more…)

  • Jericho’s Note

    “What is life?” She asked the question then threw her hands up in the air. She hated dumb. Stupid. Idiocy. Needy. All of it.

    “What now?” Cameryn peered over the top of her phone and stared. “Jericho? What?”

    But Jericho was lost again, spinning her hands around and had no idea she was doing it.

    Its not that she was evil. Well, not totally. She felt great guilt if a heart was broken and it was her fault. Mark Stinson. Now she dumped him in a shameful manner – text message. Two years ago and she still felt very embarrassed about it. Cody Reese. She told him she loved him, then later that night found herself saying the same thing to another boy, the name slipping her mind right now and that is why she felt such shame. She did the right thing, and told Cody she was not ready for the commitment and that she was terrified of her own words. No, she did not mention the cheating aspect, but details are not needed when guilt is genuine.

    But the others, now they were not her fault. (more…)

  • Factory Fur Nightmares

    The dew of the early morning soaked the chenille corpse beside her. Polyester stuffing drifted down the alley in the wind. Izzie squatted and considered the remnants. It was a clean kill. She’d cut the belly open from stem to neck and severed the head from the teddy bear, just to be sure. She didn’t want the poor bastard waking up still alive. She wasn’t that kind of monster.

    Moonset wouldn’t come along for another ten minutes. She was patient. She could wait.

    She ran her knife along the plastic charms on her bracelet, making them swing. It was a cheap thing she’d bought on a whim from one of those kitschy places made for teens in the mall. She was way too old to be in there without a child accompanying her, but she couldn’t pass it up. Three little teddy bears dangled from it: two brown and one pink. Three down. She hunted a fourth now. (more…)

  • The Muse of Suicide

    They are pretty, aren’t they? This bracelet is my very favorite thing. It has taken a long time to collect these charms. Each one is a very special memory of someone very dear to me. Everyone deserves to be remembered, don’t they? Especially beloved friends.

    Do you see these baby shoes? They’re not for a baby. But she loved babies. Any time a friend had a baby she would be there, holding the wee thing, playing with it, entreating its smiles. She and her husband fixed up their nursery as soon as they were married, and then they waited. It was only a matter of time, she thought, until they filled that nursery with babies of their own.

    When the doctors finally told her, she was devastated. Her husband found her in the rocking chair, a receiving blanket in her lap.

    This Christmas star. He had everything a man like him could possibly want. The important job, the lovely wife, the kids so accomplished at school and in sports. They lived the picture perfect life. (more…)

  • Three Favors

    Outside the door, Ashley paused with her hand on the cold steel of the knob. She knew the lonely, dark silence that waited for her inside the house. The modest looking brick two story was once a home, but now it was just an empty space. It was going to swallow her whole.

    The city of Chicago was covered in a frosty November drizzle that had soaked her during the long walk form the cemetery. Ashley regretted not starting a fire before she left and would now have to wait for the house to warm up. At least she had enough money for the coal today.

    A sound from the kitchen caught her attention. Someone was in there, but she should have been alone. With her heart beating wildly, Ashley crept into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. A woman she never met sat at the small kitchen table in the corner but a woman she knew well was at the sink washing dishes. Her sister, Miranda was wearing the same dress she wore when Ashley buried her a few hours earlier, but had the sleeves rolled up past her elbows.

    “Come, warm yourself.” Said the woman at the table. “The fire from the stove feels so much better from here.” (more…)

  • Mantis Memory Beads

    For every life I take, I add a bead to the bracelet. I select his bead while he doses in the sheets beside me. Sweet man. All of them were sweet—the beads on my bracelet. Elsewise our children would grow to be monsters.

    “What are you doing?” he asks from the shadows. (more…)

  • August Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    I don’t know about you, but us here at the Confabulator Cafe are having a tough time wrapping our heads around the fact that it’s August. Where has this year gone?

    While we sit here pondering the fluidity of time, we also have to look back on this year and recognize how many awesome stories we have written over the last seven months. I am incredibly proud of this amazing group of writers. We’re still going strong!

    This month, we bring you even more amazing fiction. The August prompt is: “she added a charm to her bracelet for every life she took.” We encouraged people to think outside the box here, and I think this month’s stories achieved that wonderfully.

    We hope you enjoy this month’s batch of stories. Here is the August schedule:

    Thursday, August 4: “Mantis Memory Beads” by Emily Mosher
    Monday, August 8: “Three Favors” by Amanda Hadley
    Thursday, August 11: “The Muse of Suicide” by Aspen Junge
    Thursday, August 18: “Factory Fur Nightmares” by Dianne Williams
    Monday, August 22: “Jericho’s Note” by Rob Conway
    Thursday, August 25: “Soul Bracelet” by Anita C. Young

  • Wedding Breakfast

    The morning after the wedding, Asa stands at the center of a circle of his kin. Overhead, a startled shout sounds from the bridal suite. It is followed by an audible scuffle and the gathered family laughs. Asa’s uncles are pulling Matthias from his wedding bed.

    Gavin and Griswald, both in their forties and strongest of the Stonehaven uncles, drag the naked and hollering new bridegroom down the inn stairs. His butt smacks each step on the way down. Asa winces for his friend. The chuckling circle of Stonehavens parts to allow the trio into the center and closes behind them. As they reach him, the uncles force Matthias to his knees before Asa.

    The young bridegroom breathes hard, his face red with rage. Asa smirks at Matthias’ tan. The swarthy and muscly farm boy is milk white and scrawny from the waist down. Matthias glares up at Asa, but goes quiet as he notices his friend’s clothes. The anger in his face gives way to fear.

    Asa looms above him, wielding a black, iron sickle. Matthias had always teased Asa about his figure—an overlarge head of shaggy, flaxen hair atop a rail thin body. Broom handle, he’d said. Stickbug. Now, Asa looks predatory. A mantis, clad in the blood red robes of The Witch.

    Gavin and Griswald release Matthias’ shoulders and he slumps from his knees to his buttocks on the cold, stone floor. Griswald, the man’s new father-in-law, ruffs Matthias’ hair before retreating to the general circle of Stonehavens. (more…)